Marathon training take 2

This time of year goes so quickly, and I can't believe it's already time to start getting real about my training for London 2009. I've been trawling through free marathon schedules online, and I'm amazed at the variation between them. I sort of assumed there were only a few ways you could prepare your body for covering 26 miles, but there are plans based around 6/7 runs a week, ones with 4-5, ones with cross-training, and the mileage increase varies hugely from a mile a week to 4 or 5 (which seems to me to be asking for trouble). Some plans seem to suggest running only 18 miles prior to the race, others to incorporate a full 26 mile practice run!

For Athens I followed a plan from the 'Smartcoach' tool on the Runner's World website, and the strange thing was that it instructed you to do only 3 runs a week, plus cross training. I chose this because I had suffered a knee injury earlier in the year and didn't want to re-injure it, and I found the 3 runs idea to work well in terms of preventing recurrance, but it sort of made me feel like I wasn't taking my marathon training very seriously. Now I feel ready for something a bit more intense, a bit more 'marathon runner-ish'.

At the moment my ideal schedule would be 4/5 times a week, with cross training instead of the other runs, as I don't want to push my luck (and my knee ligaments) after 6 months of only thrice weekly runs, but I haven't found the perfect one yet. The idea of starting a new schedule is appealing though: I can't wait to start ticking off the miles again and watching the distance climb! I just hope I can keep that enthusiasm going over long, dark runs in the dreariest months of the year....